Polycarbonate (PC) resins have been used as an engineering plastic in numerous applications that take advantage of the resin's various beneficial properties including impact resistance, heat resistance, and dimensional stability. The use of reinforcing additives for polycarbonate has been limited primarily to glass fiber, due to the tendency of minerals to contribute to degradation of polycarbonate at elevated temperatures (greater than or equal to 300° C.), which may deteriorate the performance of resulting mineral-PC compounds.
There remains a desire for a mineral reinforcement or filler that is compatible with polycarbonate and does not degrade PC resin at elevated processing temperatures (greater than or equal to 300° C.). The inventors have surprisingly discovered a method of reducing thermal degradation of PC but incorporating into the PC resin, inorganic filler materials whose surface have been modified by at least one functionalizing agent. The inventors have discovered that when the surface of inorganic filler materials has been functionalized to isolate the active sites located thereon, the fillers can be incorporated into a PC resin without adversely affecting the thermal degradation of the PC material.
In the following description, certain aspects and embodiments will become evident. It should be understood that the aspects and embodiments, in their broadest sense, could be practiced without having one or more features of these aspects and embodiments. It should be understood that these aspects and embodiments are merely exemplary.